1941-1991 The Cold War

1945 Iron Curtain Speech by Winston Churchill

• Iron Curtain: the invisible line between capitalist West and communist east Europe
  • runs from East Germany to Albania and Bulgaria
• calls out communism as a danger (implication → that the USSR and Stalin is a danger) and threat to the West
• suggests the East-West ideological divide, reflective of contending spheres of influence
• placed the UK in alignment with the USA, reaffirmed Truman’s stance on the USSR
• led to Stalin’s hostile speech as a reaction
• resulted in a war of words + raised political temperature
  • increased mutual fear of suspicion of each other → relationship further strained